Who's a brand?

["L. Bird" <pkeets@hotmail.com>]

>I suddenly realised (writing to a friend today) that what I have kept alive 
>is The Who as a BRAND not a BAND so if we are clunky sometimes it is my 
>fault.

Here I am getting all poetic and extravagant, and Pete comes up with 
something practical like this.  Well okay, I'll go for it:  The Who 
Multimedia Productions (and Whatever), Ltd., a diversified company, 
producing music, opera, movies, musicals, ballets, books, soundtracks, 
posters, tee shirts, caricatures (I mean John's), Lifehouses, TV shows, name 
your art, we do it, etc., etc., etc.  ;)

This also explains the confusion that reigns among reviewers as to what's 
one of Roger's projects and what's one of Pete's.  What does everybody think 
of VANPIRES?  As a concept album, is that going to join the general 
confusion?  This is all mixed up in the public consciousness as Who stuff.

So, sometimes they do get out on the fringes with their solo stuff, but 
there are invisible little tethers that draw them back to the center.  It's 
a pretty hot fire of creativity burning there at the center, too.  Pete 
worries about giving too much and about preserving his autonomy because the 
Who collaboration is so consuming.


>I can't speak for Roger. (As I said yesterday, he has little sense of irony 
>- but he is the most generous spirited and ready-to-laugh people I know.)

Roger never looks in the mirror.  He hardly sees the first reflection, much 
less the second. ;)


>But what The Who are doing today is ironic to a fault. This is not parody 
>or nostalgia.  We are pretending to be pretentious. I am actually 
>pretending to be old and worn out. I am not.

Ironic to a fault?  Because it really does deceive people?

It does look straight.  They go through those same gyrations that went with 
the old Who act, and it's believable.  It would be laughable if they 
decended the least bit into parody here--three old guys acting like that 
could undermine the whole thing with the least giggle.  But it doesn't seem 
that they're acting--the music takes hold and drives it.

So what's the irony?  Pretending to be pretentious?  (He said that 
yesterday:  Pretentious?  Ha, I'll give them pretentious!)  That means The 
Who is the real thing, right?  ;)


>What is old and worn out in this age of web-communication is journalism. 
>Dependent on advertising, utterly and completely, I am astonished when 
>journalists - dependent too on spell-checkers - sneer at any Who era in 
>which more than five men were on stage, or that any Who song should be sold 
>to advertise a product.

Definitely a tired attempt at social controls.  They're trying to keep The 
Who in a five-man rock music box.


keets


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